Can the passionless replace the paranoid?

The good news is that objectivity, purportedly a prerequisite for journalism, is being strictly upheld by a new breed of reporters. The not-so-good news, especially for journalists as a whole, is that the new breed is not human, but it is making a stronger and stronger presence in the increasingly endangered profession all the same. Welcome to the advent of “robot reporters”.

A lot of people are not aware that some stories they are reading, or even some news video clips they are watching, are being produced by robots. According to Al-Jazeera, an increasing number of financial reports, sports updates and earthquake alerts are already being produced by algorithms with very little human involvement, if at all. A software, Wordsmith, is producing a large number of earnings reports every quarter, taking “boring duties” out of the hands of human business reporters. And human migration into the video news industry is not “safe” either. A video creation platform, Wochit, can generate and upload hundreds of news videos to websites and social media a lot quicker than human reporters.

These are only some examples. Robot reporters are also able to handle more complicated tasks. Programs are being developed so a “robot reporter” can research all website reports, weigh their credibility and produce its own story. This robot can win the race to come up with the most comprehensive article when, say, something happens that involves many agencies or countries. If stock markets crash worldwide, for example, nobody can write a faster and more complete story.

The robot reporters’ work is lacking, or will lack, emotions. To people considering objectivity as the most important journalistic virtue, that is something to celebrate. No matter how “ethical” a human reporter, emotions or ideological leanings can get in the way. To people who share the emotions or ideologies, like-minded stories are commendable. But such stories can be annoying or downright offensive to the readers who do not share the feelings of the reporters.

This does not mean, though, that future robot reporters cannot do analyses or even commentaries. In fact, they may be able to do better analyses based on wider “research” and weave multiple facts. And everybody in the journalistic field knows that good commentaries require strong analytical foundations.

This is not to say that robot reporters are a few excellent algorithms away from taking complete control from their human counterparts. Matt Carlson, an associate professor of the Saint Louis University was quoted by Al-Jazeera as saying that what was more likely to happen was a productive co-existence, “a hybrid approach where robots are writing part of a story and humans are writing part of a story”.

Like many other pursuits, journalism requires strong passion. What headline can a robot editor give for the coordinated terrorist attacks in France, for example, and can it beat the inspired output of a human editor? Can a robotic editorial on the French attacks reflect the same outrage as ones written by humans? As of now and in the foreseeable future, passionate robot reporters remain something very far from reality.

But the news media world is still facing an absolute upheaval. Fast-evolving technologies and the social media are already making reporters adapt and reform themselves. The work force will certainly be additionally spurred by robot reporters who are tireless, a lot cheaper and more accurate. The rate of adaptation, already very fast at the moment, may have to be even faster. “Only the paranoids survive” is an odd saying to describe human reporters’ struggle, because their soon-to-be direct competitors could be ones who don’t know what paranoia is.